FAQ

Am I eligible for submitting my work or attending your events for underrepresented writers? We leave it up to the individual to determine whether or not they self-identify as being underrepresented in terms of race/ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, sex, gender, socio-economic class, neurodivergence, disability, and refugee/immigration status. Please note that when we talk about representation and underrepresentation, we are talking specifically about publishing.

 

I can’t use the submission form, is there another way? Yes. You can email us at contact [at] theselkie.co.uk when the submission cycle is open and we can send you a Word/PDF version of the submission form.

 

How long do I have to wait for a response to my submission? We request you wait at least four weeks after submissions close before getting in touch.

 

Do you charge a submission fee? We do not charge submission fees.

 

Do you pay contributors? We do not currently pay contributors for website submissions. When we receive funding for anthologies, we make paying contributors our top priority. Paid opportunities will always be highlighted as being paid.

 

Will The Selkie own the rights to my work? No. Contributors retain their rights and can ask The Selkie to remove their work from the website at any time. Contributors can also submit their work to other publications, however, we advise you to inform that publication that your work has previously been published at The Selkie.

 

Will you publish an excerpt from my published book? No. We can only select a limited number of submissions per submission cycle, so we no longer accept excerpts from work that’s already been published to keep the process fair for all.

 

My work has been published on another site, will you publish it? No. If your work has been published elsewhere, we cannot publish it. We used to allow this if authors had permission from the copyright holder/other website, but that didn’t work out. It’s best for us not to re-publish work to avoid copyright issues. If your work was published on The Selkie first, you can submit it to other places as we don’t own the rights to your work. As mentioned above, please inform the other publication that the work was published on The Selkie first in case they want exclusive rights to your work (always read the terms and conditions!).

 

Can you help me promote my work? Absolutely! If you’re an underrepresented writer, we can share/promote your books, short stories, and poems on our social media, even if they’ve been published elsewhere. Please share your work with us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook (@theselkieuk) and ask us to help you boost it. You can also email our social media team directly at communications [at] theselkie.co.uk. You can also let us know if you’re running an event or book signing and we’ll share the details to our followers.

 

Can I attend an event for free? We charge a small fee for some of our events and are always mindful to ensure we’re charging a reasonable rate – most of the time, our prices are lower than average. However, if you’d like to attend an event but cannot do so due to financial circumstances, please get in touch with the event organiser as we sometimes have sponsored tickets available for those on low income.

 

What do you do with the money you raise? We’re a community interest company and everyone who works for The Selkie is a volunteer, so every penny raised is re-invested into running The Selkie (paying for hosting, domain name, and security), reaching underrepresented writers and helping us support underrepresented writers through workshops, masterclasses, or publishing insight events and more.

 

Why do you only accept Google Docs? Not everyone has access to Microsoft Word (including our volunteers!), and it’s always risky to accept files through submission forms and emails. We find using Google Docs is the safest way for us to access and share your work. You can always contact us if this is a problem, we’ll be happy to work around it with you.

 

Can we team up on an event? We’re always looking for awesome people who are as keen as us to help underrepresented writers. If you’d like to run an event with us, please email our events team events [at] theselkie.co.uk.

 

Do you accept simultaneous submissions? Unlike most literary magazines, The Selkie provides its contributors with a round of developmental edits as well as copy-edits before publication. As such, we unfortunately do not accept simultaneous submissions, since we do not want to risk authors withdrawing their submissions after we had already dedicated considerable time and energy to helping them polish the piece.

 

Got another question? Get in touch using this contact form.

 

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